Saturday, 24 September 2011

Whilst held in Waddington Hall, Solomon was given an experimental SHIVA truth serum. All his knowledge of Dept X is now recorded on a newfangled cassette tape. During the fighting in episode 2, the Waddington sound wave transmitter was damaged and the tape was smuggled out of the Hall and flown out of the country. The head of SHIVA, the mysterious Guru, has decreed that the tape must be brought to him in his Tangerinia jungle base. Unknown to SHIVA, Solomon managed to place a micro-tracker device in General Jaffa’s underpants. Dept X deploys maximum resources to Tangerinia, their mission to salvage the cassette to prevent SHIVA finding out all their secrets. Pandora has been sent in to the base but has been captured and is being held along with a number of enslaved scientists.

The game starts with the cassette in the possession of the Guru in his office. The data up-loader is in the control room. It takes a full turn to start the upload of the data. The data up-loader must be attended by at least one technician at all times. At the end of each turn where a technician has been at the controls for the whole turn, roll 1d6 and keep a tally. Once a total of 14 is reached, the cassette data has been successfully loaded on the SHIVA super computer and can be transmitted to all SHIVA bases once the super computer has translated the signal into binary code which it will do once the total reaches 30.

The super computer is invulnerable to attack but the transmitter can be damaged. There is an aerial loop around the base which must be powered at all times to give the clearest signal. There are four markers representing power sources. If two of these are destroyed (def 4, hits 1) then a -1 is applied to the SHIVA technicians dice, if all four are destroyed then a -2 is applied.

General Gordon, recently recovered from his encounter with Satsuma's blow pipe, leads the rest of the Dept X agents.

The jungle base. Top left Guru's lair, top right the computer room. The more central building is the cell area.

Colonel Outspan leads a squad of his mercenaries to defend the right side of the base.

Two Femdroids swing their hips down the centre. Their technician looks on proudly.

The two Field Trials scientists are put to work readying the computer to up load the cassette. They also provide the Guru with another activation counter.

Agents move along the right side of base towards Col Outspan.

The agents on both sides of the base take out two of the control boxes, slowing the functioning of the Guru's super computer and transmitter much to the annoyance of Outspan who looks on helplessly.

Outspan and his men are caught in a blast from the Confusion Beam in Solomon's umbrella and are forced back. Hopefully the femdroids will deal with the threat. Sadly they are put out of action almost immediately by Solomon's destructor ray.

Pandora has taken an invisibility serum and has managed to pick the lock of the cells. The scientists form a conga line and make their way back towards the agents and freedom.

In a scene lost in the archives, Pandora used her invisibilty to creep over to right of the base where the lovely but lethal Satsuma was waiting to blowpipe Gordon again. Pandora floored Satsuma and a mercenary in a flurry of judo-fu.

Things now look grim for the Guru. With two of the control boxes damaged the loading of the cassette is taking forever. On the right, Satsuma is stunned and the guards are under pressure. On left, the outbreak of confusion amongst Outspan's men has them reeling and Solomon has dealt with the Femdroids. The Guru and Jaffa are forced to get more involved.

Solomon gets a taste of confusion as the Guru mind blasts him in revenge for the destruction of his femdroids by the Doc's disintegrator attachment to his brolly of doom.

Solomon is still confused as he is attacked by Jaffa and a merenary.

The hand to hand combat in the foreground went on almost the whole game without resolution. The Guru uses his mental powers to mind blast the agent at the left of the picture after the wiggling hips of the femdroid draw the agent out cover.

Satsuma still lies stunned. She is only saved by the arrival of a technician who patches up the damaged femdroid. The femdroid and the mercenary returned on the reinforcement card - just in the nick of time to knock Pandora out of the game in a hail of rifle and nipple gun fire.

As pressure mounts on Dept X, Gordon and his remaining agents fall back to protect the scientists who start to come under threat from a counter attack.

The fight on the left side of the base swings the way of the Guru's men after some very lucky recovery rolls see the return of some stunned mercenaries.

The femdroid is damaged again. The technician put her back into action with some good repair rolling.

Solomon is on his own now, carrying two hits and under threat from Jaffa and the Guru.

The hand to hand continues (yawn)

Solomon makes a dash for the Control Room hoping to seize the cassette tape. He is finally cornered by Jaffa and is knocked unconscious. There will have to be a second series....

This episode like the last, swung back and forth dramatically. Dept X were all over the Guru's forces in the early stages. The Guru and Jaffa were forced to get heavily involved. Some timely event cards worked in their favour, especially the reinforcements who came on the table just in time to knock Pandora out before she could wreak hand to hand havoc on the mercenary guards having taken out Satsuma. The confusing of Solomon was key as that allowed the Guru's men to take a few sneaky hits off of him.

Thursday, 22 September 2011

Napoleonic Skirmish using the Songs of Drums and Shakos rules from Ganesha Games. Part of a two day gaming frenzy to christen my new wargames room. Also gave me a chance to show off all my Grand Manner mediterranean/peninsula buildings in one place for the first time.

The full extent of my Grand Manner Spanish style buildings to date. This is a 4ft by 4ft gaming area. Plenty enough for a skirmish.

Two British squads each led by a Lieutenant and NCO. This was the first time we had played for a while and quite a large game so all the figures for simplicity are Q4 C2 apart from the officers who are Q3 C2. All armed with muskets. The French have two similar squads.

The aim of the game is to clear this hill top town for an advance by the main armies which are following.

The British start to roll a wagon load of hay to block up the street in front of the Convent. Unfortunately the French spoil the idea by shooting at and setting fire to it!

One of the French squads advancing down the next street.

The French lay some heavy fire down Convent Street, forcing the British to abandon the now blazing wagon.

The green jackets advance down Windmill Street.

The British are pinned down in Convent St.

The British in Windmill St also take some heavy fire. their lieutenant orders his sergeant and two men to go into the church to get to a better vantage point.

The British begin to have some fortune and start to inflict some hits on the French in Windmill St.

The Sergaeant makes it to the church roof and waits for his men to take up position with him as the rest of the green jackets exchange fire with their opponents.

The British in Convent St decide to break out and two of them melee their way down the street, double teaming Frenchmen as they go. One manages to knock a French soldier down while the hatless British infantry man delivers a fatal blow in the style of British hooligans over the decades.

The next victim is an ill-fated French lieutenant who is taken to floor an finished off with the bayonet.

The Sergeant finally gets his men into a good shooting postion on the church roof...

...and takes a pot shot over the heads of his comrades, helping to drive the French back.

The French finally break from Windmill St after another Lieutenant is put out of action.

Monday, 19 September 2011

The following three blogs are of games played when Jason from the Reading club helped me christen the new wargames room this week following my move to the Forest of Dean.

Department X – The new series, now in glorious technicolour

Episode One – Rumble in the Jungle (Gather Scenario p 134)

The new top secret GB3 Robot Spy Plane has been flying over the People’s Democratic State of Tangerinia looking for signs of S.H.I.V.A. activity. The PDST is ruled by the despotic General Jaffa who is believed to be financed by SHIVA in exchange for secret bases and access to the country’s ample natural resources. The GB3 was just about to transmit the location of a major SHIVA base when it was apparently shot down. Dept X has sent in a crack unit of agents led by General Gordon to the point where contact was lost. The GB3 contains numerous experimental components crafted by the skilful hands of Doctor Hugo Solomon which must not fall into the hands of General Jaffa and his SHIVA masters. General Jaffa has dispatched his Tangerine Guard led by Colonel Outspan to recover the spy plane.

The cast

General Gordon, 10 agents including one Corporal.

Colonel Outspan, 10 mercenaries including one Corporal.

Dept X advance past an ancient totem.

The Dept X corporal is knocked out by the Colonel.

The Colonel is put out of action, but his men move on into the village.

The Tangerine Guard start to make inroads into the agents, resorting to brutal hand to hand combat.

Gordon steps in to counter attack the TG.

The TG grab a load of the components and start to take them back to their lines.

TG cover the retreat, having now gained all the counters representing vital parts of the GB3.

The guy in the Jon Motson coat brings the last componenet back to the SHIVA deployment zone.

The agents are unable to stop the SHIVA forces getting the components off table.

A frustrated Gordon curses his luck with initiative rolls.

This episode served as a nice easy reminder for myself and Jason as we had not played 7TV for a little while. The SHIVA forces faced a smaller but better force. They were very lucky with initiative rolls which went their way over a sustained period which allowed them to grab all the counters representing the GB3 components.